lynch
(Deeply.) Enter a ghost and hobgoblins.
zoe
Clap on the back for Zoe.
kitty
(Hiccups again with a kick of her horsed foot.) O, excuse!
zoe
(Promptly.) Your boy’s thinking of you. Tie a knot on your shift.
stephen
As a matter of fact it is of no importance whether Benedetto Marcello found it or made it. The rite is the poet’s rest. It may be an old hymn to Demeter or also illustrate Cœla enarrant gloriam Domini. It is susceptible of nodes or modes as far apart as hyperphrygian and mixolydian and of texts so divergent as priests haihooping round David’s that is Circe’s or what am I saying Ceres’ altar and David’s tip from the stable to his chief bassoonist about the alrightiness of his almightiness. Mais, nom de nom, that is another pair of trousers. Jetez la gourme. Faut que jeunesse se passe. (He stops, points at Lynch’s cap, smiles, laughs.) Which side is your knowledge bump?
the cap
(With saturnine spleen.) Bah! It is because it is. Woman’s reason. Jewgreek is greekjew. Extremes meet. Death is the highest form of life. Bah!